University of SplitFaculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Split

Place

Split

State

Croatia

Scientific field, discipline, subdiscipline

HUMANISTIC SCIENCESHistory

Study programme type

university

Study level

undergraduate

Study programme

History

Academic title abbreviation

univ. bacc. hist.

Genre

undergraduate thesis

Language

Croatian

Defense date

2017-09-22

Parallel abstract (English)

In this paper I have tried to answer what are the main differences between fascism and nazism. Both regimes operated in very similar ways but with minor differences and both have had, because of their pragmatic choices and compromising alliences, bigger impact then some other regimes, especially considering their war power and fear of death that comes with it. Nazism, in that sense, is only a copy of Mussolini's fascism, and is nothing but an unfinished totalitarian regime characterised by an unseen terror and hatred towards any enemy of the state. We can call nazism and fascism 'fraternal twins' in a sense that they have both reshaped the picture of the world with severe consequences to all of humanity. Also, both regimes are products of psychologically distressed minds, who have, under the mask of ideology, tried to resolve their own frustrations and flaws. Both Hitler and Mussolini acted similarly with only minor differences and have had global goals. Many theorists tried to examine the essence of both regimes and find out what their main differences are; one of the more popular is the thesis of marxist philosopher Ernest Bloch who connected the Nazi success to the violent human thought of blood, ground and capitalistic heaven. He thinks that all of the values brought by a Nazi regime have survived only because they have lost any kind of connection to the economic and social reality. On the other hand there are more influential thinkers who see fascism as a developing dictatorship, established with a goal of maintaining an industrial growth by imposing savings and establishing work forces. Both dictators subordinated the economy to their political goals and there are many interesting psychoanalitical explanations of their personalities. Mussolini was perceived as a common man because of his proud attitude, his relentless chasing after the ladies and his obsession with details. However, Hitler was perceived in a different way. When describing his personality people use words such as secretive, hypochondriac, narcissistic, malicious, megalomaniac but also very charming, especially when among the crowd of people. The question that arises is if all fascist leaders were utterly insane, how did they managed to rule for such a long time? Also, lot of them think of fascism as a subcategory of totalitarianism. In May 1923 Giovanni Amendola, leader of the parlamentary opposition, came up with an adjective 'totalitaria' in his article in which he condemns fascist intentions to monopolize all the public duties. We should acknowledge at least, the difference between that and Mussolini's regime where he tried to stabilize relations with the Church, monarchy and local authorities. Not one regime, however, not even Hitler's or Stallin's, managed to take the last piece of privacy from the people, nor it managed to take away personal or group autonomy. Totalitarian theorist in the 1950s believed that Hitler and Stalin best describe their ideology. The criteria was offered by Carl J. Friedrich and Zbigniew K. Brzezinski in 1956. They explained that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were managed by a single party, which used its own ideology, terrorist police supervision and managed all types of communication and economic organisations. There is no doubt that fascist repressive system was less agressive then the Nazi one, but in both regimes the law was subordinated to the 'higher' laws of the race and class. Hitlerism and Mussolinism are also different when it comes to their final goal – to the first it is the domination of the higher class, and for the latter it is the domination of the state. Mussolini mostly detained enemies of his regime, while Hitler had mercy for no one. He killed the enemies of the race, sentenced to death even the newborns, wanted to destroy all the nations including their graves and cultural history. Nazi biological extermination did not allow saving even women and children. We can conclude that Hitler's regime took much more lives than the Mussolini's, but it also means that both regimes still do not have exuses for their crimes, regardless of their similarities and differences. Hannah Arendt, one of the most prominet theorists, wrote about bolsevism and national socialism and concluded they are the true example of totalitarism in the 20th century, equating Nazism and Bolshevism as two almost identical forms of totalitarian rule, while fascism did not consider totalitarian regimes precisely because of its milder nature.